Education reporter

A group of Cedar Shoals High School students is just $4,000 away from a trip to New York City.

The Cedar Shoals Concert Choir has raised about $53,000 to pay for the Big Apple trip, where 18 members of the group are scheduled to sing in the city’s fabled Carnegie Hall.

But they’re still a little short, said Cedar Shoals choral director Linda Moon.

The young singers hope to make that up by March 29, when they have scheduled a silent auction and a bake sale. The event, open to the public, runs from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the chorus room of the Larry McLure Fine Arts Building on the Cedar Shoals campus.

In New York, the chorus members will join more than 200 college and high school singers from around the country for four days of rehearsals with composer John Rutter, who wrote part of the music for the recent British royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

The students are already learning the two pieces they will perform in their April 8 concert at Carnegie Hall.

With repeated key and time signature changes, the music is difficult, said one chorus member, senior Chandler McRae.

But the students are mastering it, anyway.

“We’re getting it,” said junior Tony Browne. “I would never have thought I would ever get the opportunity to sing in one of the most wonderful places on earth, Carnegie Hall.”

“I think it’s an awesome opportunity. We have worked hard,” said senior Alicia Davenport.

“Seldom to you get to perform a piece when you’re directed by the composer,” agreed McRae.

The students will get a chance to do more than rehearse and sing, Moon said.

They’ll all get to see the Phantom of the Opera and do some New York City sightseeing, she said.

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